Until recently, the internal combustion engine, whether powered by gasoline, diesel or some other form of fossil fuel, has been a ubiquitous part of nearly every modern automobile. The near-universal use of the internal combustion engine has fed an unrelenting reliance on fossil fuels and contributed to pollution and global warming. Over the last two decades, increasing fuel prices, a shared desire to conserve scarce natural resources and government mandates for higher-efficiency vehicles have stimulated the development of automobiles that either combine an internal combustion engine with electric power in a hybrid drivetrain, or which use electricity as the sole power source. Gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles still retain an internal combustion engine to provide motive power, electricity-generative power or both. An increasing minority of these vehicles now provide a “plug-in” feature that allows onboard batteries to be charged from an external electric charging station, which can effectively render gasoline power optional, provided the onboard batteries retain a sufficient charge. Fully electric vehicles are wholly dependent on external charging, an aspect that can also lead to a worry in drivers of these vehicles, known as “range anxiety,” that their electric vehicle lacks sufficient driving range and could potentially leave the driver stranded without battery power or a means for replenishing that battery power.
Both plug-in hybrids and fully electric vehicles belong to the group of electric vehicles (“EVs”) that are dependent, to some degree or entirely, on external electric charging facilities. While service stations that dispense gasoline and diesel fuel are plentiful, the infrastructure for charging (or “re-fueling”) EVs remains only sparsely implemented, which feeds into the fears of range anxiety. Moreover, charging an EV generally takes a significantly longer amount of time than needed to fill a tank of gasoline and, as a result, EV drivers must contend with the few available charging stations being tied up for longer periods of time. While the rate at which an EV's battery is charged can be increased, the shorter charging times are at the cost of battery life, which is often shortened by the process of rapid charging. Consequently, EV drivers have to adopt driving habits and charging routines that account for these shortcomings.
Efficient utilization and sharing of EV charging stations is paramount to ensuring the success of EVs. While private charging stations can be installed at home, these devices are often costly and can require significant electrical upgrade. On the other hand, publicly-usable EV charging stations have increasingly become available as an adjunct to parking facilities, as an EV will effectively remain parked for whatever time is necessary to charge the onboard batteries. The need to park an EV for whatever time is necessary to charge the onboard batteries is in contrast to the transitory nature of refueling with gasoline or diesel at a service station, where vehicles frequently come and go. For that reason, parking lot operators, storeowners, restaurateurs, inn keepers, and other interests catering to or reliant upon business from motorists who need to park their vehicles see the provisioning of charging stations as a way to incentivize customers to patronize their establishments. However, the first-come, first-served usage model is inadequate to ensuring charging station availability for EV drivers. Moreover, for these individuals who own or provide charging stations to maximally benefit from this resource, an array of charging stations must be managed in a way that maximizes their profitable usage, yet is easy for EV drivers, and has enforceable restrictions that prevent abuse. Conventional EV charging station solutions fail to sufficiently address these concerns.
For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 4,532,418 to Meese et al. discloses a structure for and method of charging an electric vehicle at a parking location and facilitating billing for the charging energy utilized and the parking time. The structure includes a standalone charging and parking meter at a parking space for receiving a charge card and into which a charging plug from an electric vehicle may be placed, along with structure for reading the charge card and locking the plug in place. A central processor unit tracks charging energy used and parking time and stores billing data for periodic removal to facilitate billing.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,081,205 to Williams discloses an electronic parking meter and electric automobile recharging station. An input device enables a user to select the parking time or recharging time for the electric vehicle after entering recharge power requirements. A payment receptor receives payment for the parking and recharge time. The recharging station and parking space are managed as a discretely-purchasable resource.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 2011/0227533 to Wolfien discloses a car parking system for charging motor vehicles with electrical energy. A charging station associated with a parking space is capable of being coupled electrically to a motor vehicle to charge a charge storage unit (battery). The car parking system has a central processing unit that is separate from but which communicates with the charging station for retrieving characteristics of the motor vehicle. A user can buy time to park and charge the motor vehicle and can choose slow or fast charging, but the charging station and parking space are managed as a discretely-purchasable resource.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 20120173292 to Solomon et al. discloses reservable electric vehicle charging groups within an electric vehicle charging network. An electric vehicle charging network server is coupled with multiple electric vehicle charging stations that each include one or more charging ports and are owned by a charging station host. When configured, an electric vehicle charging reservation group includes multiple charging ports and allows a limited number of electric vehicle charging group reservations that are each applicable to all charging ports in the reservation group, yet parking is not separately reservable by non-electric vehicles or vehicles who do not belong to a reservation group.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 2011/0246252 to Uesugi discloses a vehicle charging allocation managing server and vehicle charging allocation managing system that contains plural charging stations. Each charging station has a battery charger to charge a vehicle, a charging station managing server for managing the charging stations, and a vehicle charging allocation managing server that allocates each of the vehicles to an appropriate one of the charging stations for charging. The vehicle charging allocation managing server has a controller for setting a vehicle charging allocation schedule and a charting time zone to charge each of the vehicles on the basis of a battery residual capacity and a battery capacity consumption plan.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 2011/0035261 to Handler discloses charging vehicles in a parking area. A charge request may be received for a vehicle located in the parking area and having a power connection with a power source. An electric charge is provided through the power connection to the vehicle based upon receiving the charge request and payment is recorded upon departure of the vehicle from the parking area.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 2011/0127944 to Saito et al. discloses a parking and power charging system. The parking and power charging system attempts to optimize charging performance of a fleet based on the state of charge of each electric vehicle's battery. When an electric vehicle arrives at a car park, a parking state detection means detects the presence of empty parking spaces. The charging performance to each detected empty parking space is ranked, so that the empty parking space having higher ranking of charging performance is selected based on the electric vehicle's state of charge.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 2011/0131083 to Redmann et al. discloses a method and apparatus for parking lot management that associates a parking lot parking entry event and a parking lot electric vehicle charging event, which allows a single payment to be calculated for parking and electric vehicle charging.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 2011/0140658 to Outwater et al. discloses an automated parking garage with electric vehicle charging. A carriage receptacle is physically attached to a carriage of a high-density parking system. The carriage receptacle electrically connects to an electric vehicle supported by the carriage. A bay receptacle is physically attached to a bay of the high-density parking system, which in turn electrically connects the carriage receptacle to a power source to provide charging to the electric vehicle when the carriage is moved into the bay.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 2011/0241619 to Young et al. discloses a distributed charging system for charging an energy storage device of an electrical vehicle operated within an operation region, where a number of station or parking areas are arranged at intervals. The system contains a plurality of charging stations and fast charging devices. When the electrical vehicle is parked at a station or parking area, the electrical vehicle's energy storage device is quickly charged by the fast charging device.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 2011/0193522 to Uesugi discloses an operation managing server for charging stations, each of which has a charger and accepts a charging request for charging a vehicle battery. A charging time estimating unit estimates a charging time required to charge the vehicle battery based on past charger data. The system learns a battery's charging times to provide a better estimate of charging time. The user can choose a free charging station or allow the server to recommend one based on time or proximity.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 2012/0112698 to Yoshimura et al. discloses a charging system that includes a parked car number detecting unit configured to determine the priority by which one of two vehicle groups is preferentially charged according to the number of parked cars or the parking rate.
There is a need for providing efficacious utilization of EV charging infrastructure that balances both charging capacity and parking by EV and non-EVs alike.